


once in a while

by wildcard_47



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Captain & Commander 2019, First Times, Fluff and Smut, I Did It For The Zine!, Love On Top/James On Top, M/M, Who Hasn't Had Gay Thoughts?, Zine: Captain & Commander, bottom!Francis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 00:16:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20144377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: A drunken confession spawns a series of phenomenally stupid decisions, and ends in a bargain that could make a sailor blush.AKA the college professors AU we all deserve. My fic for the 2019Captain and Commanderfanzine!





	once in a while

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [a Todd Rundgren song.](https://open.spotify.com/track/2ckXnzyvgva2oE9FWjb405?si=6YDuRODQSQ6I61WxNbA7Dg)
> 
> Thanks to **MasterofAllImagination** for the beta! :)

It was eleven o'clock on a Friday night in Blanky's pub, and, as usual, James and Francis were very drunk.

James wanted to say something prosaic, because the strings of fairy lights tacked above the gin bottles were twinkling and Francis wasn’t scowling and also the word  _ prosaic  _ was lovely, but Francis caught his gaze instead. 

“Christ, James. Stop staring at those lights, you look like a damned luna moth.”

“I’ll assume my eyes are enormously incandescent.” Francis rolled his eyes at this; James just smirked. “Why do you hate the lights? They look nice.”

Francis grabbed a drink stirrer from the nearest plastic container, sighed, and stabbed at the ice in his glass with a mutinous expression.

“Come on,” wheedled James.

“You’ll laugh,” came the crisp response.

“Francis, I won’t. I promise I won’t. Just—even if it’s stupid, you can tell me. All right?”

The answer came after nearly a full minute of silence.

“Sophia.”

James blinked. “Cracroft?”

As if either of them knew another Sophia whose uncle was their department chair.

“Had ‘em in her room, above her bed.” Francis made a frustrated noise. “I dunno. Just–lot of time spent staring up at them, really. Bored out of my skull.”

“Bored,” repeated James.

Francis stabbed at another piece of ice. James watched it ricochet off the rim, onto the table, and shoot past someone else’s chair.

“I mean, you know how it is. All these idiots–” he waved a vague hand at the pack of uni students who had spent the night alternatively trying to flirt with and getting rejected by girls– “ carping about how much they want a shag. They dunno it’s rubbish, do they?”

_ Rubbish?! _

James realized his mouth was open, and shut it before Francis could catch him out. “What’re you talking about?”

“Sex, you idiot.” Francis rounded on him now, with an exasperated glare. “Overrated.”

“What?” was all James could squeak out.

“Come on. You’ve never been bored in the middle of it?”

_ “Bored.” _

“Yeah, like…watching TV over her shoulder. Wondering why your mouth’s weird. Getting claustrophobic. The usual.”

James was afraid even to blink, because then he might smile, and then he might  _ laugh,  _ and then Francis might strangle him and drink every bottle of whiskey in this goddamn bar. But none of that mattered, because Francis had stopped talking, and  _ fuck,  _ how was James supposed to react to this? What the hell did you say to  _ sex is rubbish _ ?

“Have….” Oh, Christ, his heart was hammering. “Francis, have–you never…?”

“s’fine at the end, though.” Francis’s ire seemed to have dimmed now that he had unburdened himself. Ironic, as James was positive he couldn’t hold his poker face for much longer. “Why? How d’you deal with the let down?”

“I—that hasn’t—been my experience,” was all James could say. “Er. To be fair, I’ve never been with a woman, so how would it—compare?”

“You mean,” and Francis’s hand jerked away from the straw so quickly he knocked ice across the counter, “when you have—it isn’t—”

James reached out, covering Francis’s forearm with his hand. “Well, it’s not uncommon. People get sick of each other, hate doing the same four moves, whatever. Only it shouldn’t be that way early on.”

“Really,” bit out Francis.

“You’re—ideally you’d find pleasure in each other. Right? Good Christ. Sex ought to amplify the attraction that’s already there, not blast it out of existence eight seconds after you first take your clothes off.”

The skeptical look in Francis’s eyes softened, but only slightly. “Yeah.”

“And of—of course you and Ms. Cracroft never—had that sort of… ”

“No.” Francis’s voice turned quiet. “We didn’t.”

“So you see, there was a reason.” James’s voice had grown more confident, although he wondered if he’d said anything half-decent at all. “Could’ve been more than one reason, but there—it’s just—not ideal.” He considered the scenario—having a partner who was so disengaged from sex that they were thinking about  _ how weird their mouth was _ when they were supposed to be lost in a haze of delight, or enjoying being kissed—and could not understand it. “Rather go without than be a selfish lover. And it sounds like she was.” James squeezed Francis’s forearm once before withdrawing his hand.

They sat in silence as the nearby group of uni students started gathering up in teams for a game of darts.

“So you’ve really never been bored before? With anyone?”

Shit. James had been afraid of this. He was going to give Francis a complex. “Well, I’ve had bad sex, obviously. Been unhappy after. Woke up hungover; slept with an ex. All the usual regrets.”

“‘Course.”

“But it—when you’re in the middle of sex it should be all— _ heat,  _ and want, and movement. How good they feel under you. How much you crave getting them off. I mean, if you’re open. Patient. Lucky enough to have that spark. Y’should have so much more than—how you’d feel waiting for a sandwich in the lunch rush.”

James spoke most of this soliloquy to his own glass, and was startled out of staring at the dry curl of lime rind in the bottom by Francis clearing his throat very pointedly.

“Sorry.” He pushed his glass aside. “I’ll stop babbling.”

When he glanced over, Francis was searching his face as if they had never seen each other before. Then he looked away, a flush darkening his cheeks. “I don’t need your pity.”

James sucked in a breath. “Francis, no. I’m not—it isn’t that. I’m just—”  _ Surprised. Wistful.  _ “Wish you knew what I meant. That’s all.”

Grumbling, Francis waved the bartender over for another round.

##

_ How good they feel under you. How much you crave getting them off. _

Francis couldn’t get the damn words out of his head. Maybe it was only the context of the speech that disturbed him, and not the content. But if James fucking Fitzjames, of all people, could swan up to a bar, hear Francis’s apparently-horrifying confession, and make a passionate speech without sounding like a total ponce, then maybe there was more to sex than Francis had realized or experienced.

Maybe it was something to do with two men. Easier to use the equipment if you’d already got a set, right?

“All right, Frank, either you’ve concussed yourself on the way in, or you’ve got somethin’ on your mind, ‘coz it’s eleven-bloody-thirty and you’re sittin’ at my bar with a pint of club soda, staring at the fruit tray.”

_ Fruit.  _ Fucking hell.

Before he could lose the nerve, he asked Tom, “D’you think I’m—inexperienced?”

“Gonna have to give me a bit more rope than that, duck.”

“ _ With women.”  _ He ground his back teeth together. “All right?”

“Don’t think most blokes’re experienced with women. Not like meetin’ a herd of sheep on the road, mind.”

“I mean on a general level. Am I just—has the whole bloody world got—?”

Francis did not know what question he meant to ask, and could not finish the sentence. It was a good thing in the end, because the pub door swung open, and Tom’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. When Francis glanced back to see who the hell else would be here two minutes after opening, he saw James framed in the doorway.

“Hello, Tom. Francis. Thought I’d, ah, pick up an early lunch.”

“Chicken salad?” asked Tom, as James approached the counter. “The usual?”

“Yeah. Thanks. Extra tomato, if you don’t mind. Cucumber, celery. Extra veg, really.”

Ignoring Francis’s silent, wide-eyed plea to stay, Tom walked away from the counter and back into the kitchen, where he cut on the radio.

“Trying to eat healthier,” James said, as if tomatoes were the most pressing part of this conversation.

“Right.”

Now out of sight, Tom turned the radio volume up again; the music got so loud they could pick out every damn note. Some old Todd Rundgren album.

James announced, without preamble, “I think we should have sex.” He slid onto the barstool next to Francis as Blanky continued warbling out lyrics, vaguely off-key and sounding nothing like the original:  _ maybe I think too much but something’s wrong… _

Good thing they were already sitting down. Francis thought he might faint otherwise. “What?” 

“Sex,” James repeated, as if  _ that  _ had been the confusing part of his sentence. “You and I. We should have it.”

“Yeah, I heard that bit,” Francis snapped back. “Question still stands, doesn’t it?”

The song continued on:  _ it’s important to meeeeeeee…. _

Blanky was trying to hit the falsetto notes, now, and failing miserably. Francis made a disgusted face; James grinned, and for a second, everything seemed normal.

“Well, if you like, I can start over by seducing you, so there’s no confusion.”

Francis snorted out a  _ no _ . “Doing a shit job of it right now, to be honest.”

“Yeah.” James’s smile faded, though the light in his eyes stayed friendly. “Look. Honestly, I just keep thinking about—our conversation the other night. You told me not to pity you and I haven’t. Regardless, I think you ought to go into your next date, relationship, whatever…with a sense of  _ how things could be. _ So you don’t end up in a situation like last time, where you were bored and Sophia was….”

“What?”

“Well…using you.”

“Jesus,” Francis breathed. Even Blanky hadn’t put it that way, though he’d fired off plenty of insults after the second or third rejected proposal. “She didn’t  _ use _ me.”

“But you didn’t get real pleasure. Not—I’m sure you felt good sometimes, but she didn’t treat you the way she should have done. Speaking as your friend, you deserve better than  _ bored _ .”

Weird, weird, the entire bloody thing was too damn weird, but Francis couldn’t even scoff at such a stupid idea. Just sitting there, staring at James, remembering everything he’d said the night before….It made him curious, if nothing else.

“So, beyond doing your good deed for the year, what’s in it for you?”

James ducked his head on a laugh. “Trust me, Francis, this isn’t a good deed. It’s a phenomenally stupid notion which might kill us both, in the end. Which, as you know, is the kind of risk I most enjoy taking.”

“Hmph. Sounds about right.” He was almost afraid to ask the next question, and could hardly lift his eyes from the fizzy contents of his glass. “And me?”

Wordlessly, James covered Francis’s hand with his own. This was odd, but not terribly so—not until James began to stroke Francis’s first two knuckles with the pad of his thumb. The gesture was so tender, and so oddly moving, that Francis felt pinned to his seat. Staring at their joined hands caused a jolt of anticipation to thrum through his body.

“Because I’ll take care of you,” said James.

In the back, metal clattered and doors squealed open while Blanky kept singing, now mangling the key change in the last stanza:  _ and spend the night if you think I should… _

Francis nodded once, the motion jerky and forced. “All right.”

James’s mouth pursed into an  _ O _ , but before he could answer, Blanky tapped the bell with a booming: “Order up, lads!”

Francis pulled his hand away just as the Yorkshireman burst through the swinging doors.

##

At James’s insistence, they met for dinner at a tiny Italian place. It was cramped and loud enough to keep things from being awkward, but intimate enough for them to enjoy a good meal and a glass of wine with dinner.

Throughout the day, James had begun touching Francis in tiny ways, whether it was putting a hand to Francis’s shoulder when he stopped by to drop off a cup of coffee at three p.m., or touching the small of his back as they left the restaurant, fingers curling gently against the wool of his coat.

Francis had seemed puzzled by these overtures, but gave permission when James asked, and continued accepting them without hesitation. By the time they left the restaurant, it was almost natural for James to trail his fingers over Francis’s arm as they rode down the escalator, or to lay his head on the man’s shoulder while they rode the Tube home.

Once they got to James’s place, Francis tensed up again, though whether it was from excitement or nerves James couldn’t say.

“Do you want another glass of wine?” he asked, as they deposited their jackets, keys, and wallets onto the dining room table.

“Oh, no. Thanks.” Francis gave him a sheepish smile before sitting down on the royal-blue sofa. “Want a clear head.”

“Course.” James turned on the stereo and dimmed the lights to less-hideous levels. “If I turn these down, can you still see?”

That made Francis laugh. “I wear reading specs, you twat, I’m not bloody blind.”

“Good. Cause I need mood lighting, but I want you to see me.”

“Of course you do.”

Francis laughed again, relaxing visibly, so James crossed over to the sofa and sat down next to him. He put a friendly hand on his knee and squeezed it, very slightly.

“All I ask is for honesty. If you like something, tell me. If you don’t,  _ definitely  _ tell me, so I don’t make an idiot of myself.”

“You always make an idiot of yourself.” The words were normal, but Francis’s voice was breathy. James was now tracing small circles on the inside of his knee. “But that’s all right.”

“Mmkay.” Smiling, James leaned in and kissed Francis’s shoulder through his soft t-shirt. The Irishman made a confused noise, but put a tentative hand against his back nonetheless. Emboldened, James let his fingers wander down till he caressed the middle of Francis’s thigh through his jeans with one hand, and played the other around Francis’s shirt collar. When James’s lips touched bare skin, Francis hummed in the back of his throat.

“‘S nice.”

“Going for more than just nice,” murmured James, and opened his mouth to suck at the junction of Francis’s neck and shoulders. He felt and heard the gasp this produced with no small amount of pride, and got fully hard at the sound.

Francis’s breathing turned heavy, and his head fell back against the sofa cushions. James used this as an excuse to straddle him and squeeze the top of Francis’s thigh with one hand as he continued exploring. “Christ, you smell good.”

“Mmph,” sighed Francis, which turned into a deeper moan as James trailed his fingers across the taut seam of his thigh, then palmed his stomach through his rucked-up t-shirt.

“Yeah.” James bent his head to kiss Francis’s neck again, laving little kisses and bites and swipes of his tongue up the strong column of his neck and over to his ear. Here, he took Francis’s earlobe between his teeth, pulling at it in a puppyish way.

Francis shivered.

“Hm.” James’s hand had already traveled up to his chest. He toyed the pad of his thumb across Francis’s nipple, and got the same reaction. “You like that.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I like seeing it,” James said, tugging down at Francis’s shirt collar. “Can I take this off?”

“Yeah.”

James leaned backwards. Francis’s hands pulled at the back of his collar, but it did not stop James helping to ease the shirt over his head—and it certainly didn’t deter him from caressing the line of Francis’s bare, blushing throat with the back of his fingers. The Irishman had turned a patchy red already, flushed nearly all the way down to his navel.

“God, you’re so pink. I love it.”

“Shut up,” huffed Francis, but he was grinning, and his blue eyes were blown dark with desire, so James wasted no time in leaning forward to kiss him: easily at first, and then with added urgency, till Francis was gasping against his mouth, grasping at his biceps with both hands.

Breaking the kiss, James moved down his body, laving kisses across Francis’s pectorals till he could take a soft peaked nipple into his mouth. When his lips closed over it, Francis gasped out a ragged moan. “Oh, god.”

Humming in appreciation, James toyed the other nipple between his fingers as he continued to root and suckle there. He tried a flash of teeth, even, and was rewarded with a deep groan. He continued at this leisurely pace for several minutes, till Francis was arching and grinding his hips into James’s chest, thighs shaking. He gripped the back of James’s collar with both hands, breath hitching as he hissed: “F-fuck!”

With a hoarse cry, Francis tensed all over, shuddering violently. James did not know whether the pleasure had triggered ejaculation, but in all honesty he didn’t bloody care, all he wanted was to get Francis’s cock in his mouth—feel him—taste him.

“Get your pants off,” he whispered after the spasms had ebbed and Francis lay panting against the cushions, arms now splayed wide. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to Francis’s stomach. “Gonna taste you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Francis whimpered, still out of breath. “You’re kidding.”

Fumbling at Francis’s fly, unzipping him, and yanking his jeans down past his knees, James wasted no time in caressing Francis the way he’d been dying to, passing both hands up thick thighs before rubbing his palm over the bulge between Francis’s legs. The Irishman’s dark briefs were already patched with pre-come, and his cock twitched noticeably under the increased attention.

Francis’s eyes were squeezed closed, and he was biting his lower lip between his top teeth to keep quiet. So James leaned in to tongue at damp cotton, relishing the squeak and the start this elicited. Before long, he pulled the briefs down to join the jeans, and helped Francis push them aside.

Then he leaned in, kissing the underside of Francis’s cock.

“Shit,” hissed Francis, his hands flying to James’s head and tangling in thick, sweaty curls. “James, that’s—”

James was too busy taking him in to the root to reply, and groaned around his girth when he bottomed out. Francis made a high, desperate sound, and clutched James’s hair in two fists. As James set a pace, letting one hand wander down to Francis’s stones and grazing the perineum while the other caressed his stomach and chest, Francis began to shake again.

“Jesus God. Oh, god, James. You—you—’s too fast, I can’t—”

James’s breath caught in his throat as he took the man in particularly deep.

“—Oh, fuck, ‘m close, ‘m so close, James, that’s—you’re—”

Smirking, he hummed around Francis’s length, and squeezed Francis’s thigh in reassurance.  _ Come on. Come on. _

“I’ll come in your mouth,” blurted Francis, nearly hyperventilating now, panting open-mouthed like an overheated sprinter. “Oh my god,  _ fuck _ , ‘s good, fuck, you feel so—”

_ Want you to.  _

With a sharp, ragged cry, Francis thrust up and came. James drank him all down with gusto before pulling off, eliciting another, softer whimper as Francis shuddered through his orgasm. He did not stop shaking for at least a full minute. James watched him in wonder and satisfied fascination as he palmed both hands up the man’s strong, stout chest.

“J-Jesus!”

Francis was clearly shocked, still gasping, but even this was not enough for James. He wanted to see the open-mouthed pleasure in Francis’s face at least one more time, feel him shudder apart all over again.

_ Make you feel good, Francis. Fuck you till you scream with it. _

“Hands and knees,” he breathed, and kissed Francis’s twitching thigh. “I’ll show you something.”

Slowly, clumsily, Francis obeyed. By the time he was in position and James had ducked in and out of his kitchen to get the coconut oil, some of the initial desperation had worn off. He was still hard, but he felt more in control now, and less like he was going to spurt just from watching the man’s chest rise and fall with harsh, guttural breaths.

Positioned on all fours, Francis glanced back at him, a frown crossing his features. “You all right?”

“Yeah. You?”

Francis just laughed, and ducked his head.

“Assume that means yes,” James confirmed, as he tossed a couple of the back sofa cushions onto the floor.

“Yes.” Francis was still smiling, but the easy reply turned into a moan as James leaned forward and spread his cheeks with both hands, then pressed his face between them.

“Fuck. Jesus—fuck!”

Before long, Francis’s hips tilted desperately, and for several minutes, his body kept falling forward in rhythm with a sharp snapping motion, like a drowsy man attempting to stop himself from drifting off every few seconds. But James knew why he couldn’t keep his balance: his arms were probably rubber. Good.

Pulling away with a gasp, James slicked up both palms, reaching around with his left hand to stroke Francis in a slow rhythm while he pushed one finger inside him.

When James had buried himself to the knuckle, Francis sobbed, “‘M coming,” although he did not spurt again. 

James wrapped his left arm around the man’s waist to hold him upright as Francis’s body snapped taut, pulling the Irishman’s back flush against James’s bare chest and damp y-fronts. 

“J-James!”

“Got you.” James was careful not to stroke Francis’s cock, just holding him firm as Francis quaked in his arms. Christ, he wanted to see Francis spurt so badly. If this hadn’t been their first time together, James would lie Francis down and fuck him with slow, deep rolls of his hips till they were both spent. “I’ve got you. One more.”

“C-can’t,” gasped Francis, bucking harder against James’s body. “I—I—”

“But you want to,” James whispered in his ear, now playing with Francis’s cock. He relished the high-pitched whine Francis let out when he twisted his wrist on the upstroke. “I’ll get you there.”

Whimpering, Francis reared onto his knees, and sagged backwards against James’s chest as James slowly began to thrust his finger in and out. Before long, they were moving in a simulacrum of the act itself; James rubbing against his own hand and that gorgeous arse as Francis ground his hips faster, seeking release, gasping out nonsense words so loudly James’s ears rang with his desperate cries.

“Fu—Ja— _ god,  _ that’s— _ ah! _ ” Yelping, Francis shot off, and his legs suddenly buckled. 

Both men collapsed forward into a tangle of arms and legs. The velvet feel of him and the smell of his sweat was enough to send James shuddering over the edge. They lay unmoving for several minutes, till Francis let out a gust of a sigh. 

Then James kissed the back of his shoulder. “Take a deep breath, and I’ll pull out.”

Francis made a high-pitched noise as James removed his hand.

“God, you’re sexy.” James kissed the small of Francis’s back, licking away all traces of his own seed. “Covered in spunk.”

This made Francis gasp and quiver all over again. 

After several minutes, he flopped onto his back, legs still twitching. James had to roll into the crevice between the seat cushions and the back of the sofa in order to curl up next to him.

“Five. Times,” Francis finally rasped. “Jesus God.”

James had hoped for six. Six was a nice, even number. “Not too bad, eh?” He propped himself up on one elbow. “Er. D’you want water or anything? I’ve—”

Francis groaned, and his eyes slipped closed. “Can’t bloody move.” He tapped James’s elbow to urge him to lie back down. “Jus’—stay.”

After several minutes of lying pressed to Francis’s chest, his arms tucked warmly beneath broad shoulders, James asked, “You all right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, James closed his eyes. He lay awake this way for a long time before Francis finally moved: first, Francis carded his fingers up and down James’s side, then brushed a thick lock of hair away from his forehead.

Next, he turned his head, and pressed a soft kiss to James’s crown.

James concentrated very hard on not reacting as Francis drew back and cleared his throat, speaking in a low whisper before kissing his forehead a second time.

“Thank you.”


End file.
